Article Title

Authors

Newspaper Title

Publication Date

Publication Place

Event Topic

Political Party

Whig

Region

free state

Quote

The infamous act has been forced upon the country by the power of an oligarchy

Document Type

Article (Journal or Newsletter)

Full Text Transcription

The deed is done! The astonishing perfidyto the Free States of this Union has beenconsummated, by the aid of forty-four traitors to therights, interests and honor of the North. TheMissouri Compromise, that sacred compact whichhas been considered as binding as the Constitutionfor thirty-four years, has been repealed. -- Slavery is now free to take up its march to allthe territory west of Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota,extending to the Rocky Mountains. Theblack flag of oppression is unfurled in triumphover a territory as large as all the Free Statesput together, which has hitherto been consideredas sacred to freedom as Pennsylvania orMassachusetts. The act has come upon the countryso suddenly, so unexpectedly, that we can scarcelyrealize the extent of the enormity. It isscarcely five months since the infernal projectwas broached, by that Arch Traitor Douglass,and now the deed is done! This is said to be agovernment of the people, and yet here is a deedof extraordinary perfidy and injustice enacted,without the wish or desire of the people, and inface of their most solemn protest. Not a petitionhas been offered in its favor, while thousandshave been sent in against it. The infamous acthas been forced upon the country bythe power of an oligarchy, in despite of its protests,and in defiance of its express will. Wasever such tyranny enacted by the Representativesof a free people?

But are the people powerless? Have they noremedy? Thank God, they have the means ofredress in their own hands. All that is wantingis the spirit and patriotism to use the power theypossess. Let the cry of repeal be sounded. Letfreemen flock to Nebraska and Kansas, and swearon the altars of freedom, that it never shall becursed with slavery. Let the North come to theunalterable resolve that no man shall be sent toCongress who will not pledge himself to voteagainst the admission of another slave State. -- Let us proclaim to the South that its faithlessconduct has relieved us from all obligation toCompromises; that we scout and spurn them, asthe shallow artifice of petty tyrants, who onlyobserve them so long as may suit their ownpleasure and designs, and that from henceforth wedeclare an unflinching, irreconcilable war withslavery, in all its conditions and aspects, as the solecause of the injustice and humiliations we arecalled upon to suffer!

Let us do this, and Southern slaveholders willlive to curse the day that they stooped to usesuch plaint tools as Pierce, Douglass & Co.